Introduction: We continue the “My Summer @ Google” series with a post from Emily, a sophomore computer science and psychology double major at St. Mary's College of Maryland who recently attended FUSE in New York.

The anticipation beforehand was almost unbearable—to be completely honest I had been waiting for FUSE since the day I got home from CSSI last summer. I remember texting and writing letters to my CSSI friends, how excited I was to finally see them again and be back in a place that I wish I had never had to leave: Google. I was also looking forward to meeting new people, having new experiences and learning new things. I knew FUSE would give me lifelong experiences and lifelong friends.

FUSE was a weeklong adventure in programming, in learning our way around New York City, and in fun. And it all starts on day one. The first day our hosts handed out some Google swag and took us on an office tour. From being in the Mountain View office last summer and the New York office this summer, my idea of a real workplace is completely skewed. When I think of “the office,” I think of awesome cafes, game areas, tables with Legos, completely colorful cubicles, bikes and scooters and on top of that, all the great benefits that come with the job, such as free food, rides to work, laundry, gym and all sorts of other things. As my dad always tells me, I better realize that every job isn’t like this. I’m lucky!

During FUSE, we spent our days learning different programming languages and tools. One day it was HTML 5, another day AppInventor and another AppEngine. Our main project for the week was to code an app in 12 hours during our Thursday night hackathon. We also broke away from the computer side and learned about interviewing, sat down with engineers at Google to ask questions about what it was like to work there, and got the chance to explore NYC.

Before the all-night hackathons, though, we had a couple of nights to get to know each other. We went on a scavenger hunt in New York City, which was so much fun! We were given tasks through a phone and once we completed one, we’d get another. It was a great bonding experience and one of my favorite parts of the program (although it’s hard to pick just one!). Another day we went bowling and visited the elevated High Line park, snapping tons of pictures along the way. Most nights, after getting back from Google we would go out into Times Square and do lots of exploring. We also made it to the Metropolitan Musuem of Art, Rockefeller Center and Central Park in our time before the hackathon.

Our hackathon (or “Camp Hack”), was probably the best part of FUSE. Our mission: code an app uses social media in 12 hours and then give a presentation to a bunch of engineers about it after being up all night. We started at 8 pm Thursday night and finished 8 am Friday morning. >
It started off well, with raffles, music, campfires, laughter and fun-- and then the bugs hit: code that was working suddenly wasn’t, energy levels were suddenly low, people had no idea what they were doing and how to fix it. It was a long night to say the least! But, as all good engineers do, by the time 8 am rolled around the next morning we had anywhere from semi-working to fully working code that we were able to present. It was a one-of-a-kind experience, and a good one—it even included watching the sunrise over the Manhattan skyline at dawn.

Because of FUSE, I can say that I’ve coded a working app and I know what direction of computer science I want to go into (human-computer interaction). I have a group of mentors I can ask questions and bounce ideas off of, an idea of what an engineering working environment might be like, and what the interviews to get me there might consist of. Because of FUSE, I have a group of friends unlike any other group of friends I’ve ever had that all share one special, passionate interest.

I’ve been Googled. Well, that’s how I put it. More than once I’ve been called the “Google girl,” famous for walking around my small campus with my Google backpack proudly on my back. I’m the first one the girls on my field hockey team come to for computer help. It’s because of my summers at Google that I am so infatuated with computer science, because if it wasn’t for CSSI and FUSE for opening up my eyes to computer science and all the things I could do with it, I would probably still be a biology major.

Computer science is the future and is going to change the world, and I honestly can’t wait to be a part of it, because the change starts now with me and the FUSErs who I spent the best week of my summer with.

Introduction: Jeff Moore, lead engineering recruiter at Google, continues the Recruiter Tips & Tricks series with a post on how you should be taking advantage of career fairs at your university.

So your campus is having a career fair tomorrow. Just need to roll out of bed, print a couple resumes, stop by between classes and grab a couple free pens, right? Wrong. Career fairs are your one-stop guide to the opportunities available to you, the college student. This is your chance to meet corporate representatives, make a first impression and find out how you can land an interview for your dream job. This week, I’m going to teach you how to work your campus career fair like a pro.

Research, research, research - Know what companies are attending the fair and figure out which ones are offering jobs in your field. If you see a company on the list that you don’t know, look them up. Find out what they do. Just because you’ve never heard of them doesn’t mean they aren’t the perfect company for you. And don’t walk up to a corporate representative and ask “so...what do you do?” Doesn’t exactly make a great first impression.

Plan - Piggybacking off of the last point, create a plan for yourself on how you’ll interact with the companies you want to talk to. Don’t just go to every table, hand in your resume and walk away. Know which companies have positions you are interested in and prepare a quick introduction.

Resumes - Print as many resumes as you think you’ll need. And then double that. If your resume is more than one page, print it double sided or remember to staple it. And don’t just shove your resume into the bottom of your bag—good presentation extends to your resume, too.

Take your time - Don’t “stop by” the career fair between classes. Plan to spend five minutes per company you plan to speak with. Have a couple questions in your back pocket to ask each recruiter or corporate representative. If you’re interesting, you will be memorable. Recruiters sometimes get as many as 1,000 resumes at a single career fair. You’ll want to stand out.

Presentation is everything - At Google we believe you can be serious without a suit but that doesn’t mean you should show up in your pajamas. Besides, not every company feels the same way about attire as we do. You don’t need to wear a suit but aiming for presentable is a good plan. And never underestimate the power of a good handshake and a friendly smile.

Stuff We All Get aka SWAG - These events are littered with all kinds of pens, squishy balls, notepads, yo-yo’s and other miscellaneous branded paraphernalia. You should feel free to grab stuff, especially if you think it’s cool. However, you don’t want to be the person who takes so much stuff from every table that your next gig is starring on one of those reality TV shows about hoarding.

Stay Healthy - You’re going to be shaking a lot of hands. Be sure to bring some hand sanitizer with you or take a few breaks to wash your hands. And please help keep the recruiters healthy by not sneezing on your hands or picking your nose (I’m not joking, this has happened and it’s gross), especially right before you go to shake someone’s hand.

Follow-up - Don’t be afraid to ask for contact information, a business card or that great piece of swag you see on the table. If a recruiter says, “email me so we can talk in more detail,” do it. Following up is the most important thing you can do after the job fair.

Have fun! - The career fair should be one of the least nerve-wracking parts of your job search. Corporate representatives are on campus because they want to talk to you. Be friendly, crack a joke and be yourself.

Questions? Let me know in the comments, message me on Google+ or use the hashtag #googleoncampus on Twitter or Google+ to share your career fair tips.

Updated 10/3: The original post included the previously scheduled dates. We've updated the post and the correct dates are now listed below. -Yuko

Code Jam is an annual programming competition in which professional and student programmers are asked to solve complex algorithmic challenges in a limited amount of time, using the programming language of their choice. This year, Googlers in the Tokyo office came up with a unique set of problems for the participants and prepared a fully internationalized contest UI, all in Japanese. Google Code Jam Japan, originally scheduled for March 2011, was postponed due to the earthquake in Japan's Tohoku and Kanto regions earlier this year. We are proud to announce that it will begin this week with a preliminary round this Saturday, October 1 promptly at 1:00pm JST. The schedule is as follows: October 1st 1:00 pm JST* - Qualifying Round (6 hr)October 8th 1:00 pm JST* - Final Round (3 hr) *All times are Japan Standard Time (UTC+9).For more details, check out the Google Japan official Blog post or follow us on Twitter at @GoogleCodeJamJp. 皆さまのご参加お待ちしております！We are looking forward to an amazing competition in Japan!Posted by Yuko Chitani

As you may have noticed, the Google Student blog looks a lot different today. That’s because we—along with a few other Google blogs—are trying out a new set of Blogger templates called Dynamic Views.

Launched today, Dynamic Views is a unique browsing experience that makes it easier and faster for readers to explore blogs in interactive ways. We’re using the Magazine view, but you can also preview this blog in any of the other six new views by using the view selection bar at the top left of the screen.

We’re eager to hear what you think about the new Dynamic Views. You can submit feedback using the “Send feedback” link on the bottom right of this page, or just send us an email.

If you like what you see here, and we hope you do, we encourage you to try out the new look(s) on your own blog—read the Blogger Buzz post for more info.

As you’ve probably heard, Google+ is now open to everyone! No more invites necessary. But, that’s not all. When all your friends sign up they’ll be greeted by a bunch of new features that make Google+ a great tool for sharing and communicating on college campuses! Here are some ideas for how the new features that launch today can work for you:

Hangouts with extras: Group projects just got a whole lot easier. Video chat with your friends while using screen sharing and Google Docs integration to work collaboratively in real-time or doodle just for fun.

Hangouts On Air: Only 10 people at a time can participate in a Google+ Hangout, but now, many more can be involved using Hangouts On Air, which broadcast live Hangouts in the Google+ stream. Perfect for panel discussions, large events, office hours, lectures, or master classes, this allows you and your friends to tune into an event without worrying about getting a seat...or even leaving your room. We’re starting with a limited number of broadcasters, but any member of the Google+ community can tune in.

Hangouts on mobile: Not at your computer but need to be part of a conversation? Now you can join a video chat from your Android phone by tapping on an existing hangout when it appears in your stream. This will be coming to iOS devices soon.

Welcome to open beta for Google+. Enjoy and check out the full blog post with even more feature updates here!

As college students, you have an immense number of resources at your fingertips—and you don’t even have to leave your campus. Heck, to access many of these resources you don’t even have to leave your dorm room, though I don’t advocate living the life of a hermit if you want to be successful in your job hunt.

Here are a few places right at school to help you get started. This list is by no means exhaustive and every campus will have its own unique resources, so make sure you know what is available to you!

Career center - This may seem obvious, but your campus career center should be your first stop on your job search. Did you know there might be more than one career center on your campus? On some campuses there are department specific career centers, in addition to your central career center. Visit your career center website to see who’s recruiting students at your school and the types of positions they are offering, or check the online calendar of events. Many career centers host regular workshops in addition to the employer hosted events on campus. You may also be able to schedule an appointment with a career center advisor for more advice on your resume, to conduct a practice interview or get guidance your job hunt.

Know the rules - Many campus career centers have guidelines for recruiting on campus. You should be able to explore your options and get the most of your job search. Don’t settle for an offer just because it’s the first one you receive. If you feel like a company hasn’t given you enough time to make a thoughtful decision, ask for more time. And make sure you know what your career center policy is on offer deadlines. Many schools actually require companies to give you time to consider all your options and ask them to refrain from pressuring you to accept an offer on the spot. Take the time to understand these guidelines and respectfully ask potential employers to follow them.

Career fairs - We’ll talk more about how to navigate career fairs next week, but you should definitely make notes of any career fairs on campus and plan to attend them. Many campuses have multiple career fairs focused on different majors, so be sure to pick the appropriate fairs to attend. Remember: there may be more than one...and it might not be a bad idea to attend them all!

Corporate Affiliate Program - Sometimes this program is run by the career center, sometimes it is run by your department. Either way, these are the folks that communicate with employers and help them plan their on campus activities. They often know who is hiring and may be able to connect you directly with representatives from the companies you are interested in speaking with. This may also be where you find a calendar of all employer events on campus. Be sure to attend these! Attending on campus events are a great way to find out more about opportunities, learn about interesting technologies, get insight into company culture and talk to alumni from your school who are now in your dream career.

Faculty & TAs - Talk to your professors! They don’t bite, we promise. Professors, lecturers and TAs are great resources. Many of them may have connections with the companies you are applying to and some of them may have worked at those companies themselves. Companies like Google love faculty referrals, so if your professor or TA can speak to your work, ask them to refer you.

Student groups - Every campus has loads of student groups and if you aren’t already involved with one, you really should be. From affinity groups like the Society of Women Engineers to honors organizations to sports teams to Greek life, there is something for everybody. Besides all of the social benefits of student organizations, many of them have career-oriented activities to help members find jobs. Some of these groups even have established relationships with employers and often have alumni or recruiters come to group meetings to talk about opportunities. I know there are a certain campus groups that when I see them on a resume...I’m excited to talk to that person! Plus, remember what I said last week about networking? Networking is the most important thing you can do during your job search and student groups are a great way to network with new and interesting students.

Departmental advisors - Many departments will have internal advisors for students to consult on everything from coursework to research to employment. There is usually an undergraduate advisor in addition to a graduate advisor and they could be faculty or staff or both. Set up an appointment with your advisor to talk more about career opportunities and campus activities and resources that may help you network or further your job search.

Alumni - Your alumni network is a treasure trove of former students like you working at companies all over the country and the globe. Visit your alumni database and check out where alumni from your major or area of interest are working. Then, see if they’re willing to chat with you about opportunities in the field. If I sound like a broken record on networking...it’s true I keep repeating this point over and over again because it works!

Friends & classmates - Last, but most certainly not least, talk to your classmates and friends. Where did they intern this summer? Where did their friends intern? What do they say about their experience? Would the be willing to refer you? I think you get my point. Networking!! Did I mention I’m a broken record?

Did I forget anything? Let me know in the comments, message me on Google+, or use the hashtag #googleoncampus on Twitter or Google+ to share anything I missed!

This summer was one of our largest technical internship programs yet, with over 200 schools represented globally and over 1,000 interns in North America alone. In addition to working on challenging technical problems, the summer interns went indoor skydiving, got groovy on boat cruises and pulled all-nighters developing awesome apps at social hackathons.

Google interns work year round on a wide array of projects ranging from developing watermarking methods in Google Translate, to working on Google APIs Console, to creating spam filtering systems for Google Voice. Google offers internships throughout the year and we’re excited to announce the opening of our technical internship opportunities for winter and summer 2012.

To go along with this announcement we’re launching a video series to highlight the work that some of our interns did this summer. All of our interns have the opportunity to contribute in a number of ways by developing products that make a difference and are used by millions of people. This video series is just about that. Watch for yourself (we’ve included two of the videos in this post) to hear how Google interns made an impact this summer, and we hope you’ll apply here for 2012.

Interested in non-technical internships at Google? Stay tuned for the launch of the applications for the summer 2012 BOLD internship program!

Introduction: We continue the “My Summer @ Google” series with a post from Daisy, a first year Master's student studying Electrical Engineering at McGill University who attended the Scholars’ Retreat at Google in Mountain View, Calif. this summer. You can also read Daisy’s post in Technophilic Magazine.

It was July 27 when I landed in San Francisco, not as a tourist but as a woman in computer engineering. As finalist of the Anita Borg Scholarship, I found myself at the Googleplex for a retreat in the gorgeous city of Mountain View, Calif. For three days, I visited the Google campus, went sightseeing and attended talks by Googlers.

Day one was introduction-and-ice-breaker day at Parc 55, the lovely San Francisco hotel in which Anita Borg scholars were housed. I had the opportunity to also meet winners of other scholarships such as the American Indian Science and Engineering, Hispanic College Fund, Lime and United Negro College Fund Scholars. I had an amazing time meeting this many geeks in one place and having discussions in the hotel about issues dear to our hearts such as vi vs. emacs and Mac vs. PC.

During dinner at the hotel, we met Marissa Mayer, Vice-President of Location and Local Services at Google. She shared her thoughts on recent advances in image recognition made in the larger field. Nowadays, researchers would like to do image recognition using only a person’s face (or even or portion of it) instead of also looking at other features such as the color of their clothes in different pictures and matching them. She also touched upon text translation and how it has significantly improved over the last few years. Now we can even translate texts from a right-to-left language to an up-down language. After dinner, I caught up with Marissa Mayer to get thoughts on Google Plus:

Q: How is Google Plus a different social network?

A: What we have done with Google Plus is design a system that we feel is a better model of real-world interactions. In the real-world, you don’t say everything to everyone all the time. We really feel that it’s important to decide who you share something with and we have achieved that with the concept of Circles. So, you can assign people to categories such as family and close friends. You can decide how broadly you want to share things with circles and we think that is one big advance.

Q: What is Google Plus’ differentiating factor?

A: We have interesting features like the video chat Hangouts which are very popular, but the biggest differentiating factor is your ability to control what you share and to scope sharing in a way that matches circles.

Q: What would you say about the privacy policy of Google Plus?

A: We give people a lot of control on what they share and our model feels more natural since it reflects what they do in everyday life.

Q: How does it feel to be a woman at Google?

A: I don’t think of myself as a woman at Google but as a geek at Google! So it’s a great place to be at if you’re a geek like me. I love trying out the latest gadgets and talking with my colleagues about things like 3D modeling and that’s really what brings us together.

On day two, we set out to Google Headquarters in Mountain View. Once there, we found cheerful Googlers and a colorful campus. There were gardens maintained by Googlers as part of their hobbies and amidst those gardens, you could also see sculptures and, of all things, mini bicycles. These are used by Google employees if they need a quick ride from one building to another.

Then we had a series of presentations. One of them was by James Gosling, the creator of Java. Since Java is the first language most of us are introduced to, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to have a chat with James Gosling:

Q: Why is Java considered good as an introductory programming language?

A: There are two sides to Java. One is that it is pretty easy to learn; you can start with baby
steps. The other is that when something goes wrong, it fails early and reasonably predictably.

Q: What about using C++?

A: With languages like C or C++ the problem is that when something goes wrong, it usually manifests itself in a very strange way and it is very difficult to figure out what is going on. When you are teaching, being able to have something that is comprehensible is good.

Q: Some people are suggesting using Pascal as a first language. What do you think?

A: In a sense, Java is a lot like Pascal in that it was also used in teaching. The problem with Pascal is that once you learn it, what can you do with it? The role of Pascal was limited to a teaching language. What is interesting about Java is that it works both ways: it can serve as a teaching language and you can use it to get a job! Once you learn the basics of Java, you can do many exciting things like incorporate graphic libraries and databases.

One thing that I should mention is food.

Google has many cafeterias on campus. Each has its own theme: Chinese, Indian, Healthy, Not-so-healthy! At lunch, I had the opportunity to speak with Robin Jeffries, who focuses on UI at Google. She had known Anita Borg in person so we had the chance to learn more about the woman who inspired this scholarship. Anita Borg created Systers, a mailing system to keep women in computing connected with each other and encourage more women to enter the field. Robin is now the “chief cat herder” for Systers and she thus continues Anita Borg’s endeavour to promote computing to women.

To conclude the day, we had dinner at Bocce Café, a fancy Italian restaurant in San Francisco. Both the food and the discussions with Google employees were delicious.

Day three was highlighted by the scholar’s poster session. It was our time to shine and showcase our research. I saw very diverse projects within computer science and engineering and this was another great chance to get to know each other’s passions in greater detail.

Our feeling at the end of the retreat was unanimous: we had to stay in touch. Thus, we had a brainstorming session with scholars and organizers to find ways to stay connected as we are spread across the continent. The Google Scholar’s Retreat is an intelligent endeavour to bring technologically-driven students with various skills and expertise together.

Overall, I had the chance to meet and talk to many Googlers while at the retreat and all were eager to share their experience at Google. “We work hard but we play hard” seemed to be a common motto.

Introduction: What better way to tell you about Google’s summer programs and internships than to hear it from the students themselves? We continue this series with a post from Mark, a junior at Carnegie Mellon University who was a part of this summer’s Engineering Practicum internship program (formerly known as BOLD Practicum). You can apply here to be considered for this year’s Engineering Practicum internship program. Applications are due by October 15th.

The Engineering Practicum internship program is a unique 10-week program created to encourage the development and diversity of future computer scientists. This summer Engineering Practicum brought 62 rising juniors to four different offices around the country. I first heard about it through a program that I attended last summer, called Google FUSE. During FUSE, 50 rising sophomores were invited to the Seattle and New York offices to get to know Google. We toured the office, learned about some Google products, had a beach barbecue and had a great time.

When I applied for Engineering Practicum during the following fall, I already had a high bar set. Could this experience maintain the sense of fun and energy that we had in Seattle? You bet it could. Over the summer, we experienced the smorgasbord that is Google. We participated in the crazy and exciting product launches, such as Google+. We attended talks by head figures of the company and even danced 80's style with Senior Vice President Alan Eustace on a boat cruise in San Francisco. And through our projects and time there, we made a lasting impact on the company and a lasting network with each other.

At its core, the Engineering Practicum is a technical internship. It's ten weeks among Google engineers: walking in their shoes, eating their cake, riding their bike, and wearing their hats. When we arrived, we were split up into 2-3 person pods, and then given a host who would direct and oversee our project. The projects were diverse—in Mountain View alone we had teams in many major areas such as search, ads, and maps. I and two fellow interns worked on the Gmail performance team. After settling in and learning about Google's infrastructure, our hosts gave us our project, which was to develop new tools to analyze patterns and anomalies in computer performance data. We spent our summer researching methods and developing these tools. Though we tested these tools on Gmail data, potentially they could be used by many other teams. In our final week, we wrapped up the project by giving a short presentation.

The Engineering Practicum program was about more than the project. Every week we would attend talks on topics ranging from how Google services operate at a global level, to exciting new technologies such as HTML5. Also, although not required, we were free to attend any of the talks open to Google employees, and some of my favorite moments were spent listening to talks from huge figures in the industry, such as Chee Chew on leadership, Peter Norvig on AI, and of course Larry and Sergey at the weekly all-hands meeting. And when I wasn't solving challenging problems or listening to great talks, I was out having fun with fellow Engineering Practicum students.

All of this added up to an amazing experience. By the end, not only had I learned a great set of technical practices, I was left with a collection of unforgettable moments with a group of unforgettable people. Going into my third year of college, I now have a concrete experience in computer science, which makes what I’m learning in the classroom all the more tangible.

I cannot remember any ten weeks that have flown by faster than the ones I just spent with Google. What better way to end my Google internship than to have the opportunity, along with four other EMEA interns, to spend a week at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California.

Prior to our visit to Google’s global headquarters, five lucky U.S. interns came to visit our European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. It was now our turn to experience Google from a different viewpoint, literally! After spending Sunday exploring beautiful San Francisco, we got to work on our project. It was our task to create a marketing strategy for women-owned small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the United States. Moreover, we were given less than four days to complete it. Once again, I was fortunate to work with the most diverse team I could have asked for. Because the five of us came from five different countries and spoke more than eight languages combined, the variety of perspectives contributed to making this project a success.

After the completion of our project, more than 1,500 interns and their managers from the surrounding offices (including Mountain View, San Francisco and San Bruno) got on board the San Francisco Belle, a four-story ferry that included a dance floor, dining area and karaoke deck. Cruising underneath the Bay Bridge at sunset while screaming along to my favorite songs with my fellow interns is a moment I’ll never forget.

Our U.S. trip topped off on Friday with an intern-only presentation and Q&A with Google’s senior VP for corporate development and chief legal officer, David Drummond; and of course, we had the TGIF reception with CEO Larry Page in the one-and-only Charlie’s cafe. It may have been the craziest week of my life—and I loved every minute of it!

With so many positive professional and fun memories in mind, I say goodbye to all of you and encourage you to apply for a Google internship!

Introduction: Last week we introduced our new Recruiter Tips & Tricks series featuring lead engineering recruiter Jeff Moore. Jeff, who has over 10 years of recruiting experience, talked about how to best prepare your resume. This week he’ll give some insight into starting your job search.

You’ve got your resume done and it’s totally awesome but now you have to get started with the job search. First, don’t panic, you’ll be fine. Looking for a new job can be a fun and exciting time, especially if you are looking for your first job. Before you do anything, take a deep breath, and then let’s get this search started.

Here are a few quick tips that will serve you well in your search:

Figure out what you want to do – You don’t need to have a crystal clear picture of what your career will be in 10 years but you do need to have a general idea of the type of work you want to do. For example, do you want a job in HR? Engineering? Sales? These things matter and will have a huge impact on your professional happiness. Figuring out what kind of work you want to do will allow you to target your search and find roles that will make you genuinely excited. Don’t think of this as a lifelong career decision, just enough clarity to get you started and heading toward career happiness.

Identify target companies – Once you know what you want to do, you have to figure out where you want to do it. What industries do you like? Where do you want to live? What companies do you admire? Having a list of target companies will let you organize your search and help you increase the odds of finding a great gig at a great company.

Start networking – Networking is the most important thing you can do during your job search. I won’t get into too much detail here (more on this in a future post) but most companies get a majority of hires from employee referrals. If you want to increase your odds of finding that great job, your best bet is having a friend, former colleague, classmate or someone you know refer you to the recruiting team directly. You still need to apply for jobs online but networking will produce better results.

Tap into your campus resources – Every campus has a ton of resources to help you with your job search. Career services, the alumni office, affinity groups…you really can’t use these folks enough. They are there to help you find a job and they are a critical piece of your search. On campus resources can help you find roles to apply for online or via a job fair and also help your networking. We’ll talk much more about this in a later post but take some time to figure out what resources are available on campus…and use them.

Interview, interview, interview – I’m a huge believer in talking to almost anyone about roles if they think you’re a fit for their organization. I had never even heard of “recruiting” before my first interview for a recruiting role and my career is profoundly different because I was willing to have the conversation. When starting your job search, my advice is to talk to anyone that wants to talk to you. This will accomplish two things that are really important: First, you’ll get comfortable interviewing and be able to refine your talking points. A great candidate is able to easily communicate their experience during the interview; very few of us can do this on the first try. I believe the cliché is “practice makes perfect.” Second, there are opportunities in the world that might be a perfect match for you that you’ve just never thought of, or even know exist. Taking time to speak with people at different companies about a multitude of roles will open your eyes to some amazing opportunities and start you down an exciting career path.

That’s it for this week. The fall hiring season is picking up, so get out there and find a great gig!

The leaves are starting to change color, which means a few things are on their way: cooler weather, football season, and (for high school seniors) college applications. While I’m excited to start my senior year at UC Davis, after spending my summer interning at Google I realize my college application process would have been a lot easier if I’d used Google’s tools. Hindsight being 20/20, I’d like to share a few tips with those of you entering the application process this fall.

First, do your research. Starting today, Google is sponsoring a year of free access to the US News and World Report college rankings for anyone who registers before September 16. Visit the rankings to learn more about some of the country’s best colleges. We’re especially jazzed that sixty-one of this year’s top 100 schools are using Google Apps for Education and you can see some of the awesome things students at these 61 schools are doing -- on and off campus -- with Google Apps.

Second, stay organized. Once you have a good idea of which schools you want to apply to, here are some ways Google tools can help you stay on top of your essays, deadlines and other college communications:

Docs:

Put all the colleges of interest in a Google spreadsheet. To track your progress, include relevant due dates and tasks to complete for each school.

Write your admissions essays in a Google doc, which makes it easy for you to share and get feedback from peers and family members.

Access these documents from any computer at any time, whether it’s at school, home or on a college visit.

Gmail:

Now is a good time to make sure you have a professional-sounding personal email address. You may be interacting with college recruiters or alumni interviewers this fall, so if you’ve been using “unicorn-lover@email.com” since elementary school, consider creating a new Gmail account.

Use labels to automatically sort and color-code all incoming messages from colleges.

Introduction: What better way to recap Google’s summer programs and internships than to hear it from the students themselves? We begin this series with a post from Gabe, a freshman at the University of Southern California who recently attended Google’s Computer Science Summer Institute in Mountain View, Calif. CSSI is a three week program for incoming college freshmen interested in studying computer science. They come in with little to no prior programming experience and leave having built a fully functional web application. To read more about this year’s program check out this feature from the Official Google Blog.

I admit it—CSSI absolutely ruined me: The program skewed my perception of what working life was supposed to be (monotonous) and crushed any uncertainties I had regarding my future in computer science. CSSI made computer science three-dimensional by bringing the possibilities within the field to life. It accomplished this through a rigorous curriculum that involved creating interactive mobile and web applications, learning about Google’s initiatives to help increase diversity in computer science, receiving lots of Google swag, going on field trips around the Bay Area and attending panels where we heard from accomplished speakers from major companies in the industry. Google makes a real impact on a massive audience, and my experience there made me excited about the prospects and opportunities that lie ahead.

I probably should have known that my time there would be the only three weeks in my life that I’d get up before 8 am eager for lessons, running on snacks from the microkitchens until we returned to our rooms back at Santa Clara University and resumed work with our late night coding parties. When I first read about CSSI on my high school’s AP Java mailing list, I don’t think I could have envisioned a fraction of what it entailed. We were constantly applying what we learned at the Googleplex, where the Google engineers guided us through AppInventor, HTML, CSS, Python and various other tools for web application development. They never assumed that we had extensive experience with programming and readily shared their comprehensive knowledge, never forgetting to constantly push us to reach the answers for ourselves. As we spent our last days in the vibrant workplace at Google’s headquarters, now equipped with the skills to develop web applications, we worked in teams on interactive websites that would be our final projects.

Starting with the first career panel and lasting throughout the session there was a recurring theme that permeated the group—follow your passion. It was pretty obvious that Googlers were practicing what they preached, too, since it seemed like everyone at Google loves what they do. That mantra, “follow your passion,” was the reason behind every single one of us enjoying our work. We were given the freedom to construct applications that interested us and would be used practically by ourselves and others, and even within our teams we were able to work on the aspect of programming that we preferred, be it the aesthetic side of HTML and CSS, the logic in Python or even a mixture of both. It was great to be given such autonomy and allowed to run with our ideas.

During programming breaks, there were plenty of activities, like sharing late night snacks, hanging out in the common rooms, touring San Francisco on the intern cruise, biking around the Google campus and playing frisbee on the beach in Santa Cruz. None of these would have been half as enjoyable without the people, and the diverse perspectives that they represented. Perhaps what impressed me most about the program was the intellectual curiosity of my peers and also the Google engineers, who were unfazed by our questions about how to implement our complex ideas. The mentor buddy I was paired up with, a Gmail performance team leader, was not only a great technical teacher, but a great role model: I could see that he had a genuine and sustained interest in learning and taking advantage of opportunities. Ultimately, the biggest prize I walked away with was the connections I built with the people, who share a burning interest in technology.

Yes, CSSI ruined me, in the sense that it uprooted my doubts in the impact of computer science, and replaced it with concrete evidence of the positive influence it has on society. It spurred me to always expand upon my current knowledge, and left me with a voracious hunger for innovative technology that can revolutionize the world.

A couple of weeks ago I got a taste of life working at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Throughout the summer, I have been working with product managers (PM) and engineers from across the Pacific, so as my internship progressed, it made sense for me to take a visit to Mountain View. I was excited to finally meet my overseas team members face-to-face and to also experience the culture at the famous Googleplex.

I took an international flight out of Narita airport and ten hours later, I touched ground in the U.S. for the first time in three months. I was immediately greeted by the cool weather of the Bay Area, which was a welcome change compared to the 90 degree hot and humid summer of Japan. Although we left Japan Monday evening, we arrived before noon on Monday, six hours earlier than when we had taken off—talk about time difference! My team and I headed straight to the Mountain View campus to begin our work week. Upon arrival, I was stunned by the size of the Google campus. In the Tokyo office, meetings for PMs and engineers are held primarily in conference rooms spread across a single floor, but in Mountain View, I now had to schedule 10 minutes to commute between meetings by bike! Google’s campus is scattered with awesome communal, Google-themed bicycles. You can simply grab a nearby unoccupied bike, cycle to your destination and leave the bike for another cross-campus commuter. Speaking of commuting, I also had a chance to ride a Google Bus to and from work. The Google Buses are a fleet of buses that run between Google headquarters and nearby cities to make the morning and evening commutes a lot smoother for employees. The bus is equipped with wifi, so my two-hour round trip commute between the office and San Francisco allowed me to get in extra hours of work instead of worrying about driving or taking public transportation.

One of the things I especially enjoyed during my week in Mountain View was the tight-knit associate product manager (APM) and APM intern community. The APMs have established a close relationship by being a network of support for each other and are always willing to help each other and give advice. Throughout the summer I have worked with several APMs from other teams related to my project in Tokyo and it was a lot of fun hanging out with everyone both in and out of the office. Throughout the week we had APM lunches together, attended tech talks and explored the hidden secrets of the Googleplex (including an awesome two story indoor slide). We also got a chance to enjoy evening entertainment on a cruise around the San Francisco Bay with the other interns and their mentors.

The rest of my week in Mountain View was comprised mostly of meetings with various teams, meeting my HR recruiter in person for the first time and getting to know the other APMs and interns. Although I was only in Mountain View for a week, I felt very welcomed on the huge campus and quickly made close friendships with Googlers. Overall, the week was very productive and helped me push forward my projects, meet people from the geo team and spend time with awesome Googlers.

Erika and fellow APM and engineering interns during their ATV trip at Pismo Beach, Calif.

As my week in California came to a close, a few of the APM and engineering interns decided to celebrate the end of the week with an ATV trip through the sand dunes of Pismo Beach. It was my first ATV experience and I had a fantastic time, although, I have to admit there were moments of utter terror when my ATV would launch off an unexpected drop. I had a great time, but I think I’ve had my ATV fix for the next few months...

It’s 12 weeks since my first post, and my internship has come to an end. I thought I would spend my last post discussing what a product manager’s (PM) job really is, since it took me about twelve weeks to figure it out :)

In a nutshell, the PM is the internal face of a project. You promote your project to others within the company and galvanize resources to keep it going, as well as serve as a resource for others who want to know more about the project.

As an information resource, a PM will need to answer questions others have about his or her project. Are you an engineer on another team interested in integration with Gmail? Ask the Gmail PM. Are you in sales and your client wants to know when a new add-on will be released? Ask the add-on's PM. Have a question about search, but don't know who to ask? Ask a PM on search and they'll point you to the right person.

As a PM, you don't need to know every detail of every aspect of a project, but you need to have thorough knowledge of what's going on and where it lies in the development cycle. You should be able to answer any questions team members or other employees might have about your product and its status.

An ideal PM allows no roadblocks in a project's path. In a perfect world, there would be no delays in approval, nor would any team member be blocked from working further. A PM should know every step needed to take a project from design to launch and take care of everything well in advance. So it makes sense that to be a good PM, you have to be extremely organized, as well as experienced with the launch process.

Without developers, nothing would get built. Without sales, the product would never get to users. Without designers, the product would look ugly. Without PMs? Everything would proceed normally...for a while. Ultimately, it would become difficult to know what was going on across teams, to keep product vision and priorities in line, and to rally resources behind creative new product ideas.

A PM is a jack-of-all-trades, which is the entire point. To be able to talk to all kinds of different team members, from engineering to legal to user experience, understand what they're talking about, synthesize it, and mold the direction for the product accordingly is a challenging and rare skill. But someone's got to do it.

Being a PM was great. I got to work with a bunch of different teams and meet some awesome people, and see my feature on the main page of Google Search. I learned more about technology and exciting new products than I thought possible. All in all, it was a great summer.

Introduction: We’re introducing a new series just in time for back-to-school featuring Jeff Moore, a lead engineering recruiter for Google. Jeff has over 10 years of recruiting experience in the high tech and software industries and is currently responsible for recruiting world class engineers to join Google’s offices in Atlanta, Cambridge, Chicago, Montreal, Pittsburgh, Waterloo and Washington DC. He is an active blogger (www.jeffreytmoore.com) with interests in social networking and mobile technology. In this series, Jeff will share weekly tips and tricks for students who are on the hunt for a job. The series kicks off with tips for preparing your resume.

The fall college recruiting season is upon us…..yikes, what happened to the summer??? Soon your campus will be visited by armies of recruiters looking for the next great employee to join their team. Will you be ready? Are you that person? Well, you might be…but you need to have a stand-out resume to get the conversation started. Before we begin, one thing to remember: A good resume will not get you a job. A good resume will get you the interview and the rest is up to you. With that in mind, here are a few tried and true tips for drafting an awesome resume.

Show off your strengths – Makes sense, right? You want your resume to show off what makes you special and give recruiters a reason to interview you. The big things on your resume should make employers say, “wow!” It doesn’t really matter if it’s your education, internships or special awards, just make sure to show off your skills/experience and try to impress because (cliché alert!) you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

The devil is in the details – A detailed resume is a good resume. The more info you share, the more a recruiter or hiring manager can look at your accomplishments and determine if you are a good fit for their team. For example, which one of these candidates would you want to talk to?

Candidate A – Wrote several applications to improve efficiency within the finance group.

Candidate B – Used Java and PHP to write financial accounting application that saved the company over 25 hours a week of productivity resulting in over $100K in savings.

Remember, your resume is your message to the hiring team—tell them as much as you can so they can make the most informed decision.

Keep it short – Huh? Didn’t he just say, “tell them as much as you can”? I did, but that doesn’t mean you should write a 15 page resume. What you want is a clear, concise resume that accurately describes your accomplishments. Assuming you are a new college grad, you probably want to stick to one page. However, if you have significant accomplishments (publications, open source contributions, startups, awards, etc.) it is acceptable to go on to a second page. Lots of career services folks will tell you “one page only.” I don’t subscribe to that, as long as the content of your resume is relevant.

Spelling and grammar – I don’t even need to mention this...you get it right? We have spell check for a reason. You'd be shocked at how many resumes I see with spelling errors. Grammar and spelling mistakes look sloppy. Don't be careless, and don't depend on spell check. Proof read your resume and have others proof it as well.

Know your target – Make sure your resume is targeted to the right audience. I’d recommend you add an “Objective” at the top of your resume (below your name!) that clearly states what your want to accomplish. Think of the objective as your “elevator pitch”, a concise statement to convince the hiring manager or recruiter that you are worth an initial conversation. Your objective and the meat of your resume should portray someone who is a fit for the job and company. For example, if you want a job at a specific company write an objective like this:

Objective – To obtain a fast-paced and exciting role within the Google Staffing team.

As opposed to this….

Objective – To get a job at Google.

Again, this stuff isn’t rocket science, you just have to be thoughtful and thorough to make sure you sound like someone worth interviewing.

Ok, that’s it this week…good luck out there! Get those resumes polished and start talking to people. A great job is out there for you and it all starts with that great resume!

As students head back to campus this fall, Google’s university programs team prepares to do the same. Recruiters are revving up to attend career fairs, host info sessions and put on other events at campuses around the world to promote programs, internships, scholarships and new grad full-time positions at Google.

Have you seen Google on your campus yet? Maybe you’ve spoken with a recruiter? Attended an info session? Let us know by following @GoogleStudents on Twitter and using the hashtag #googleoncampus in your tweet.

To find out about internship and full-time opportunities, go to www.google.com/students. We’ll continue to add new opportunities throughout the fall, so check back regularly.

Other ways to stay connected with Google:

Add the University Programs specialist you meet on campus to your circles on Google+

Did you know? Only 11% of computer science (CS) undergraduate degree recipients in 2009 at major research universities were women. And, between 2000 and 2009, there has been a 79% decline in the number of first-year undergraduate women who say they are interested in majoring in CS. As a BOLD intern on the K-12 education outreach team this summer, one of my projects was to create a video that inspires girls to pursue CS. With the help of two other K-12 interns (Jackie Palma & Tessa Pompa) and our on-campus film studio, we produced “Girls in a Tech World: Endless Possibilities of Computer Science”.

We wanted to reach girls of all ages, not just those who are in the midst of choosing a major. Research shows that girls have many inaccurate stereotypes about CS that begin long before they reach college and also that they are rarely encouraged to pursue CS.

To cast the video, we sought out charismatic young women engineers at Google. Often, the way engineers are depicted in the media serves as a discouraging factor because girls look at the characters and think, “That doesn’t look like me …”—we wanted them to see role models who do look like themselves.

We recently pre-screened the video to a diverse group of 13-year old girls. They told us they found the video empowering and inspiring, which gave us the confidence and encouragement to post the video on YouTube and circulate it widely.

Check out “Girls in a Tech World” to hear awesome female engineers talking about why they love their jobs and their advice for you. We hope that this video will inspire girls all over the world, especially those who may have had misconceptions or felt discouraged about CS. Enjoy, and please pass it along!